Anne Wilkes Tucker was still digesting all that's conveyed in the 480 objects of “WAR/PHOTOGRAPHY: Armed Conflict and Its Aftermath.” The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston's photography curator has devoted a decade to creating the landmark exhibit, which opened on Veterans Day.

War is a subject that has deep impact, and because most of us don't experience it firsthand, photographs are our collective memory of it, Tucker said.

She expects strong reactions to the exhibit, although she's avoided a pro-war or an anti-war stance and has tried to illuminate both sides of the wars depicted. Each object tells more than one story depending on your perspective. (Supplementing the hundreds of photographs are a few journals, magazines, books and objects, including cameras.) Inevitably, one side's loss is another's victory.

If you don't find some of the images disturbing, however, you aren't looking very hard.

“We took some risks. It's large. It's tough. ... We tried to be as neutral as we could but to convey a range of very complex issues,” said Tucker, who teamed with collections photographer Will Michels and assistant Natalie Zelt on the exhibit. “If soldiers or photographers have seen it, it needs to be part of the discussion.”

The slash in the exhibit's title isn't just a graphic affectation.

“War has its own order and rationale. And then there's photography. This show is about how they've come together,” Tucker said.

Photography has influenced how conflicts are fought, documented and perceived.

Tucker and Michels have divided the museum's Upper Brown Pavilion into a series of small galleries focused on types of images within the overarching war theme. Although the layout takes viewers down a path from the advent of conflict through preparation, fighting, war's end and remembrance, the objects within each room are not presented chronologically.

It's an eloquent mashup spanning six continents and 165 years of war, from 1846 to the present. There's a balance of expansiveness and intimacy, and dark and uplifting images, even some humor.

“We do have a ‘lighten-up' minute to remind people soldiers are human: Guys and girls who play cards, drink beer and joke around,” Tucker said.

Soldiers are funny for a reason, Michels added. “It's a way of dealing with what they have to deal with on a daily basis.”

Tucker embarked on the project after the The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston acquired what's believed to be the first print of Joe Rosenthal's iconic, Pulitzer Prize-winning “Old Glory Goes Up on Mount Suribachi, Iwo Jima.” Although the photograph is surprisingly small and faded, the late museum director Peter Marzio declared it “a national treasure.”

Wondering what other war photographs the museum should acquire, Tucker and Michels viewed about a million images over a decade. Major grants enabled them to scour archives, museums and festivals around the world.

They didn't know where their investigation would lead until they began to recognize categories: types of images that appeared repeatedly, regardless of the era or culture. Battle images were just one aspect: They discovered bodies of work devoted to every element of war — including sabotage, executions, faith, medicine, families, refugees and memorials. Soon they were seeking pictures to convey their 26 categories in ways that showed the humanity of both sides. (Tucker spent months trying to track down one North Vietnamese photographer, only to discover his daughter lives in Houston and is a museum member.)

“We've tried to represent the patterns, and everything had to be an A-plus picture,” Michels said.

Some types were easier to find than others. Pictures of the advent of war are rarer than those of the aftermath for obvious reasons: Someone had to be there with a camera.

Death is one of the larger sections because that is something that can be photographed. One of the harder images to absorb is Kenneth Jarecke's portrait focused on the burned face of an Iraqi soldier caught in a truck fire.

“Some people dismiss conflict photographers as adrenalin junkies,” Tucker said. “But we found them to be some of the smartest, most informed, most thoughtful, most passionate people who just believe these things have to be photographed; that history needs to be made for us to understand.”